First of all, the thing is not for sale. Second, I don't know what country you're from, but maybe we should just close our "fucking" borders and then see how disrespectful you are when your economy collapses and terrorists take over your country. Get a life.
Aside from the fact that nobody is suggesting we all give our children the exact same DNA, don't you think one of the nice little bonuses we could conceivably give our genomes would be a vastly improved immune system?
Another thing, how do you think an effective immune system is created? Over time, your body generates anti-bodies to the new viruses and bacteria that it encounters and then remembers that the next time that virus/bacteria shows up. This happens over the lifetime of the person and is not in place at birth. So how exactly would genetic engineering make this better? It would most likely make it worse, because our immune system wouldn't have to deal with as many diseases and would have a smaller "arsenal" of anti-bodies ready for some new disease that may crop up.
And why is it that sharks don't often get sick? Billions of dollars spent on genetic research? I don't think so. It's called natural selection. Once you start screwing with the balance of the ecosystem bad things are bound to happen.
I realize that no one is suggesting that we give everyone the same DNA, but once you starting eliminating certain traits from a species, the gene pool will slowly converge. This is dangerous. Once again, ask any farmer.
And yes, that little aspect that farmers are keenly aware of will be ignored because of the almighty dollar. Have you been reading all the posts that say "We need to be on the forefront of this billion dollar industry", etc. It's about making money, not taking care of the species.
The stupid thing is that everyone is treating this as if people with genetic diseases are somehow less of a person because of it. They call them defects and problems. This is simply the way nature works.
I'd like to also point out that people with sickle-cell anemia are more resistant to malaria. So say we eliminate that disease from our genome, and a particularly violent strain of malaria crops up that we can't find a cure for fast enough. See you later human race.
I'm not saying that having all the same DNA is the goal, but our DNA will slowly converge over time as we eliminate the variation in our gene pool. Variation of a species has been proven to be the best defense against being totally wiped out by some kind of disease. The more our DNA converges, the more dangerous it gets.
Well, there's obviously a lot of things wrong with this guy's post, the most ironic being that he wouldn't even be able to post his opinions here if AMERICANS had not invented the Internet (or at least what became the Internet). Move to Afghanistan if you don't like it here you crybaby.
Oh yeah, this is frigging great... One day, we'll all have perfect, disease free organs. Then all our children will be born without these defects and all these pesky genetic diseases will be wiped from our DNA. Just one problem. One day, a new disease will crop up and wipe us all out because there's no variation in our species. Jesus, this is 8th grade biology. Does anyone out there know why farmers plant different strains of corn in different fields. Pull your heads out. This is not a religious issue, it's a biological one. I'm not promoting the idea of letting people suffer, but I'd rather focus on treatments then altering our genetic pool. This is dangerous.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I sent a polite little letter to those addresses. I'll let you know if I get a response.
Clayton
Jesus, people, the first 4 or 5 comments suggest Java or ActiveX. READ THE POST!!
Without using a Windows-only solution such as ActiveX, what other options are there?
Other solutions, other than Java
Did you even read the post?
Without using a Windows-only solution such as ActiveX, what other options are there?
You're looking for NetBSD
Platforms supported:
acorn26 acorn32 algor alpha amiga amigappc arc arm32 atari bebox cats cesfic cobalt dreamcast evbarm evbmips evbppc evbsh3 evbsh5 hp300 hp700 hpcarm hpcmips hpcsh i386 luna68k mac68k macppc mipsco mmeye mvme68k mvmeppc netwinder news68k newsmips next68k ofppc pc532 playstation2 pmax pmppc prep sandpoint sbmips sgimips shark sparc sparc64 sun2 sun3 vax x68k x86_64
While I believe that K-12 software costs are an important issue, that was one of the the funniest goddamn subject lines I've ever read :)
. . . and even got my wife tricking out her box.
Could you post a picture of that?
First of all, the thing is not for sale. Second, I don't know what country you're from, but maybe we should just close our "fucking" borders and then see how disrespectful you are when your economy collapses and terrorists take over your country. Get a life.
Another thing, how do you think an effective immune system is created? Over time, your body generates anti-bodies to the new viruses and bacteria that it encounters and then remembers that the next time that virus/bacteria shows up. This happens over the lifetime of the person and is not in place at birth. So how exactly would genetic engineering make this better? It would most likely make it worse, because our immune system wouldn't have to deal with as many diseases and would have a smaller "arsenal" of anti-bodies ready for some new disease that may crop up.
8th grade biology folks.
And why is it that sharks don't often get sick? Billions of dollars spent on genetic research? I don't think so. It's called natural selection. Once you start screwing with the balance of the ecosystem bad things are bound to happen.
I realize that no one is suggesting that we give everyone the same DNA, but once you starting eliminating certain traits from a species, the gene pool will slowly converge. This is dangerous. Once again, ask any farmer.
And yes, that little aspect that farmers are keenly aware of will be ignored because of the almighty dollar. Have you been reading all the posts that say "We need to be on the forefront of this billion dollar industry", etc. It's about making money, not taking care of the species.
The stupid thing is that everyone is treating this as if people with genetic diseases are somehow less of a person because of it. They call them defects and problems. This is simply the way nature works.
I'd like to also point out that people with sickle-cell anemia are more resistant to malaria. So say we eliminate that disease from our genome, and a particularly violent strain of malaria crops up that we can't find a cure for fast enough. See you later human race.
I'm not saying that having all the same DNA is the goal, but our DNA will slowly converge over time as we eliminate the variation in our gene pool. Variation of a species has been proven to be the best defense against being totally wiped out by some kind of disease. The more our DNA converges, the more dangerous it gets.
Well, there's obviously a lot of things wrong with this guy's post, the most ironic being that he wouldn't even be able to post his opinions here if AMERICANS had not invented the Internet (or at least what became the Internet). Move to Afghanistan if you don't like it here you crybaby.
Oh yeah, this is frigging great ... One day, we'll all have perfect, disease free organs. Then all our children will be born without these defects and all these pesky genetic diseases will be wiped from our DNA. Just one problem. One day, a new disease will crop up and wipe us all out because there's no variation in our species. Jesus, this is 8th grade biology. Does anyone out there know why farmers plant different strains of corn in different fields. Pull your heads out. This is not a religious issue, it's a biological one. I'm not promoting the idea of letting people suffer, but I'd rather focus on treatments then altering our genetic pool. This is dangerous.